The set of questions in this literature discussion activity is intended to engage students in reading and interpreting scientific literature and to develop a clear and coherent understanding of agostic interactions.
This paper describes the synthesis of a stable compound of sodium and helium at very high pressures. The paper uses computational methods to predict likely compounds with helium, then describe a synthetic protocol to make the thermodynamically favored Na2He compound. The compound has a fluorite structure and is an electride with the delocalization of 2e- into the structure.
This paper would be appropriate after discussion of solid state structures and band theory.
The questions are divided into categories and have a wide range of levels.
In this literature discussion, students use a paper from the literature to explore the synthesis, structure, characterization (powder XRD, EDS and TEM) and energetics associated with the production of a metastable wurtzite CoS phase. Students also are asked define key terms and acronyms used in the paper; identify the goal of the experiments and determine if the authors met their goal. They examine the fundamental concepts around the key crystal structures available.
This literature article covers a range of topics introduced in a sophomore level course (confinement/particle-in-a-box, spectroscopy, kinetics, mechanism) and would serve as a an end-of-course integrated activity, or as a review activity in an upper level course.
This module offers students an introductory chemistry or foundational inorganic course exposure to recent literature work.
This activity includes questions for students to answer to help guide them through the process of peer review. It was designed to assist students in writing peer reviews for research reports written by their classmates, but could be applied to literature articles as well.
This LO is a problem-set-style literature discussion that leads students through a critical analysis of an interesting but flawed paper from the recent chemical literature. Students use the questions to help them work through the paper prior to class, providing plenty of raw material for an in-class discussion about various aspects of the work from a mechanistic organometallic perspective. The questions help students critically analyze substrate tables, spectroscopic data, and computational results from DFT.
This literature discussion is based on a paper detailing the structure and reactivity of the title compound (Organometallics, 2016, 35,
This literature discussion is based on a short paper describing a series of Group VI metal carbonyl compounds that have pincer ligands (Organometallics, 2016
This is a great new textbook by George Luther III from the University of Delaware. The textbook represents the results of a course he has taught for graduate students in chemical oceanography, geochemistry and related disciplines. It is clear that the point of the book is to provide students with the core material from inorganic chemistry that they will need to explain inorganic processes in the environment.